This Week’s Industry News

Compiled By Rocket Clicks

It’s Our World, Google’s Just Serving Search Results In It

Google has revamped their search results to continue their move towards a more personalized experience. Under a now-live format called “Search Plus Your World,” Google aims to immerse your search experience in “Personal Results,” which serve up a combination of personalized, private, public, and social results.
This means that searching for something you’ve interacted with on Google+ may serve up a private photo shared amongst your Circles, which understandably could foster some privacy fears (the results are still only private to the searcher) as well as concern over Google giving preferential treatment to their own services.
Source: Search Engine Land

Google has once again found itself in hot water overseas for displaying ads promoting illegal activities. This time, according to the BBC, unofficial London 2012 Olympic ticket ads are showing on the search engine, and remained live for at least a week after Scotland Yard ordered their removal. The ads have since been blacklisted, but Google has stated intentions to keep the ad revenue generated, claiming they can not always monitor every company’s use of the AdWords platform.
Source: Search Engine Journal

The Latest Search Market Share Report Is In…

Short and sweet, Search Engine Journal has revealed the December 2011 search market share, and as expected, Yahoo posted the only gain for the month. While Google dropped .79% and November’s golden egg, Bing, lost 1.06% in market share, Yahoo gained a solid 1.81%, widening the tiny gap between themselves and Bing.
Source: Search Engine Journal

IFrames Are Now Readable And Valuable To Google

Link value is no longer zero when it comes through an iframe, as a test conducted by Michael Martinez at High Rankings Forums revealed that Google is now capable of crawling iframed pages and passing value through links from and to those pages.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Twitter And Google Aren’t Getting Along

Google’s intention to immerse Google+ into its search results are about as transparent as a the ending to an M. Night Shamalyan movie, and one major social network has a big problem with it. Recently, Twitter (through spokesman Matt Graves) expressed strong dissent towards social and search integration, reasoning that the real-time social network is the easiest place to find the most up-to-date and relevant news on a given topic.
Graves goes on to state that Google’s move to favor itself over other social networks will ultimately make it harder for users to find the latest news updates, and publishers/journalists to get credit for breaking a story. In response, Google basically blamed it on Twitter for not renewing their agreement with the search engine. This is probably the closes thing we’re ever going to get to a Real Housewives Of Mountain View episode.
Source: Mashable

Apple Products Can Now Access Microsoft adCenter

Despite their obvious competition for the hearts and minds of computer users everywhere, Microsoft is now allowing Apple Macs and iPads to use adCenter on their devices. The timetable for this rollout isn’t known at this time, but it’s definitely inevitable.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Given Congress’ elementary understanding of the inner and outer workings of search engines and the Internet as a whole, it should come as no surprise that a co-sponsor of the SOPA bill in the House of Representatives has violated copyright laws. Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, also an author of the controversial bill, is currently using an unauthorized photograph on his campaign website. Smith’s office did not comment on the matter, and you can bet that he isn’t the only politician supporting SOPA while also violating it.
Source: Mashable

Iran Justifies State-Controlled Internet By Calling Google A ‘Spy’

In a move more predictable than another George Lucas-led re-release of the good Star Wars movies, Iran is restricting national Internet access. The authoritarian Ahmadinejad regime claims Google is utilized by their enemies to spy on Iran, and they are seeking to provide Iranians with a heavily censored, pro-dictatorship flow of online information.
Source: Search Engine Land

Notable Commentary

(Almost) Free Of 2012 Predictions

A 2012 Six Pack Of Mobile SEO Trends

I’m going to type something that will shock you: Mobile online marketing is a big deal, and it’s getting bigger. From “SoLoMo” tactics to the widening chasm between mobile and desktop search results, Bryson Meunier runs down some of the most likely paths of mobile SEO in 2012. He also throws in a friendly objection to Rand Fishkin’s opinion about search engines being “device agnostic,” backing it up with some research.
Analysis By: Bryson Meunier, Search Engine Land

Rand Fishkin Roasts Third Party Traffic Tracking Services

Despite the problems created by Google’s (not provided) initiative, Google Analytics remains the gold standard for accurate traffic measurements day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and so on. In a recent SEOmoz post, Rand Fishkin roasts Alexa, Doubleclick, and other third party traffic trackers, using their own data against them. He provides a good gauge of just how far out in left field most of these services actually are, and laments why anyone would use them.
Analysis By: Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz

Using Social Network Interactions For PPC Ad Copy Inspiration

The viability of Facebook and Twitter as direct revenue sources for businesses is still up for debate, but indirectly, social media trends can be incredibly helpful for crafting PPC ads. Along with being tools for market research, Facebook and Twitter can often give you a great idea of the “buzz” level surrounding a given product or service.
Analysis By: Sujan Patel, Search Engine Journal

Some Great Examples Of Link Bait

SEOmoz justifiably promoted this YOUmoz post from Jon Cooper, exploring 10 extremely effective link bait campaigns and why they worked so well. The links involved come from a diverse array of industries, and are applicable to many different styles of content.
Analysis By: Jon Cooper, SEOmoz

INFOGRAPHIC: Twitter Brand Information From 2011

Mashable has published a cool infographic breaking down the top brands on Twitter for 2011, as well as the top 10 trending topics, hashtag trends, and In Memorium trends. The number one ranking in each of those categories is as follows: Twitter, Justin Bieber, #100FactsAboutMe, and Steve Jobs.
#MayGodHaveMercyOnUsAll
Analysis By: Todd Wasserman, Mashable

DuckDuckGo Would Like To Sell You Their Search Engine Services

DuckDuckGo has an easy-to-read and persuasive mini site, dontbubble.us that does an excellent job persuading visitors to at least give DuckDuckGo a try. Just for their creative efforts, use this small search engine at least a few times.
Analysis By: DuckDuckGo